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The expert craftsmen at Rocksteady Studios waste no time establishing Arkham as a creepy place it's one of the most detailed locales ever created for a videogame, split up into various facilities covering everything from the general inmate population to an intensive treatment ward to a botanical garden (which comes into play later in exactly the way you think it does). The Joker must be stopped, and you - the Dark Knight - follow the carnage trail all over the asylum and its environs, dividing your time between beating down bad guys and investigating the island's myriad mysteries.
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I won't spoil the specifics of the story here, except to say that you're confined to Arkham for the duration of the proceedings. The fact that "Animated Series" vocal vets Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill, and Arleen Sorkin (Batman, the Joker, and Harley Quinn, respectively) reunite for this game is just a bonus. And this twisted tale drills down into what it's like to be Batman, rivaling Christopher Nolan's big-screen bat-duet in storytelling quality. Best known as the co-creator of "Batman: The Animated Series," Dini knows - perhaps better than anyone alive - what goes into a good Batman story.
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In fact, this action-adventure is so smart, so well-written, and delivered with such an obvious love for its source material, I daresay it is both the best licensed game ever made, and arguably the best game of its kind in our current console generation.Ī lot of that owes to the name on the script: Paul Dini. Where most licensed videogames try to shoehorn in every conceivable piece of related fiction, Arkham Asylum delivers precisely what its story calls for, and trusts you to fill in the gaps. It's actually better off because of this minimal setup, too. When you fire Arkham Asylum up, you're thrust immediately into the Joker's hostile takeover of Gotham City's titular nuthouse - and if you don't know what any of this stuff is, tough break. No convoluted backstory or lengthy exposition to explain Bruce Wayne's tragic history for the 80 millionth time.